The dead will not return
by Pfefferminztea
Summary: Who could loose a part of his soul without being marked for life? Azureshipping.
1. Isanami

_I will upload two chapters of this story at the same time - still, if you have time, please leave me a review for each separately. Thanks! _

* * *

Have you ever experienced what war can do to people? No? Well, I have. War has destroyed my family. There was a time when I didn't even know how my mother looked like – because I never met her. My father is still alive, I grew up with him. But although he returned from the fight physically whole and untarnished, although I am used to almost every kind of war-handicap that you can possibly imagine, I've always thought he is the most terribly wounded man I met in my life. Its like – well, like he misses a part of his soul.

Yugi told me he's always been a bit like this, at least as long as they know each other. Cold and distant. It's not like he doesn't love me, but he walks through life like a living dead, hardly caring what happens around him. I'm serious. He certainly doesn't suffer of a lack of food, with a fortune like his on his beck and call, yet he seems deprived, starving, craving for something he can never have. Like I said: Like a piece of his soul was missing.

Perhaps I should say a few words about Yugi. He's my godfather - that must have been the decision of my mother, dad isn't exceptionally fond of him, to put it mildly. I don't even know my mothers _name_, all I know is that she used to be friends with Yugi. When I was a little girl, I sneaked into my fathers bedroom once, and had a look at the photograph he keeps so carefully locked away in his bedside table, almost as if he fears that his – and her – past might catch up with him. As I told you – I was a little girl. I really thought she had been a princess; at least she looked like I thought a princess would look like. When I grew up, I realised that she must have been dressed up for a masquerade, or maybe a play. Was she an actress? I never knew. But I know for sure that she must have been a simply extraordinary woman, if my father still thinks about her that much, even if he could have almost any single woman in Domino, and some of the married ones, too.

Now that I think about it – it could have been a photo of her in her wedding dress. Sounds strange – but I don't even know whether my parents were married!

I think Yugi likes to talk about her – it makes him smile. So he talks, and I listen. But all he ever mentions is their time at school, he never tells me her name or her birthday or whether she was married to my father.

Perhaps having a look at the room that used to be hers would answer some of my questions. But getting in there would be as easy as to keep me from thinking about her – nearly impossible. The door is always locked, except for the few hours every night dad spends in there. He never tells me where he is going, or tells me he has to work, but I know he's not in his office. One time I managed to peek in when he was there – it didn't seem to be the room of a dead – or at least an absent – person. It looked like she just left to answer the phone and would be back in a few minutes. Even the last book she must have been reading is still there, the page carefully marked. No matter what they tell us at school – dad's heart is not beating behind his ribs, pumping blood to sustain his body. He locked it in this room – perhaps forever.

Sometimes I wonder if he cries while he is in there. I think it's possible - although it sounds more than strange: Seto Kaiba, the great CEO of Kaiba Corporation, crying. But he cried when they took him away, at least that's what Yugi told me.

"If we had still had tabloids that day, they would have had a field day." He told me. "It was at your baptism. Your father and I were the only men, all our other friends had already been taken away to war. I had a broken leg and your father – he simply refused to go. All his money didn't save him at the end – they came when we were just about to sit down for dinner, and took him with them."

Every time Yugi tells me about my parents, I am able to picture everything. Especially that time… sometimes I still dream about the soldiers, ripping our family apart.

"I never saw your father cry before – and I never did so later. Just this once. He was holding you in his arms, your mother was clinging to his shoulder, but that didn't help them. First they forced her away, then they took you out of his arms. He didn't have to stay very long… just a few months, then he was allowed to return home, because the end of the war was already in sight. Your mother was gone by then, none of us ever knew what happened to her. Perhaps she was killed by a bomb, perhaps shot, perhaps she isn't dead at all and just got lost in the chaos we had back then – who knows? But I can't really imagine that… she would have went all the way to hell and back again just to be with the two of you. I think your parents knew the very day that your father had to leave that they wouldn't see each other again."

--

Once I asked Yugi how my parents met each other. He thought for a while, then he answered:

"It must have been about two years before your birth. Of course, they knew each other for years, we were in the same class and we had spent a lot of time together, though that was certainly never your father's intention – I can´t tell when exactly your mother noticed that he was not the cold man he always pretended to be, she could sense feelings were they didn´t seem to exist. But I think they fell in love on this certain day in November… was it the fifth? Or maybe the fifteenth, it doesn´t matter.

He attempted to kill himself, you know. We never knew why, he didn't seem the kind of person that would commit suicide, and none of us had expected something like this to happen.

Your mother figured out what he was up to – don't ask me how – and went after him. As you can see – she was successful. That must have been when they fell in love, I guess... No talk of suicide after that day. Of course, there never was more between them than talking and holding hands, maybe a short kiss, as long as others were present. Seto´s not the man to show his love to everyone – but you could see that they both were never happier than when they were together. In some way you could have thought that they were just _one_ person instead of two."

It was then that I first heard the story of the creature that was both male an female: The ancient Greeks believed that at the beginning of time all humans had four arms, four legs and two heads. They where not man nor woman, they were both. These creatures were so powerful that they would have been able to defeat the gods.

That's why the gods, frightened for their own superiority, tore each of them into two pieces: a man and a woman.

Ever since that time, humans go through their lifes, looking for their second half.

Yugi has always been fascinated by myths and legends, but he used to love this one particularly. He used to smile when he talked about it, but I could see that he meant it when he told me that this story was definite proof that there is some truth in every tale. You could see that my parents were two parts of one being, he used to say.

I guess I will have to take his word for this – at least, it would be an explanation of the miserable state my father has been in ever since I know him. Who would be able to loose a part of himself without being marked for life?

--

I can't tell why I am thinking of this now. Maybe it is because of the woman I saw at the school gate today – she looked familiar, but not until several hours later did I realize who she reminded me of.

Of course, that is impossible.

The bell rang just a second ago, and I am trying to see who is standing outside, but it is raining so hard that I can't make out the figure waiting outside the wrought iron gates of our mansion.

It's a woman, I think, her clothes are wet and clinging to her body, so it is quite easy to make out her form. Yes, definitely a woman.

Dad just came down and peered out of the window as well – and I always thought it was a figure of speech to say that all color drains from someone's face!

It's still raining hard, everything is grey and blurred outside, and now the gates open and she is approaching the house.

I think I can see her eyes now.  
They look familiar.

More than that, they're the eyes I see every morning when I look into the bathroom mirror.

Is it possible?

Dad is now opening the door.

The rain is padding on the roof and making it hard to understand, it was only a whisper anyway, but I just might have learned my mothers name right now.

"Tea."


	2. Tea

Here again. Home again.

Never, ever would I have thought that I would see my home again, not since that horrible day in November. I remember it as if it had been yesterday: It was the fifteenth, exactly three years after Seto's attempted suicide, and how ridiculous it seems now that this was the very day on which our fate was to be sealed!

It was cold, of course, and it was getting increasingly hard to get coals for heating. It wasn't that they were expensive, for what difference would that have made to us? There simply weren't any left on the market.

I don't know who spread the rumor then that it would be possible to buy coals in Tokyo. So far away, it seemed like a hardship then, but it proved to be the very fact that saved my daughter. I couldn't take her with me on the train, the journey was simply too long, and how was I supposed to carry our coals if I had to take care of a baby? So I left her with Chiyo, our only remaining employee, and every morning I am still allowed to live, I wake up with a prayer on my lips, thanking god in heaven that he at least spared my daughter.

For this was the day the nuclear bomb fell and eradicated most of what used to be our capital. I didn't see much more of it than a dazzling, blinding white light, people running, and the towering black cloud rising over our heads. I was too far away to really witness the explosion. But I felt the falling ashes, and I knew I could never go back.

I was branded with radiation, I would have killed them. My only child, and later on, my beloved husband. Of course, I knew that he had survived, I encountered his face on the newspapers once they were back in print, but what did that help me? I never could tell how much of the deathly mark was left upon me. I could not risk endangering the two of them, the two people that meant everything to me, and still do.

Now, everything has changed. There is no danger in my touch any more, so my doctor told me, and I believe him. Why would I not? Still, I would not have gone back. What use is there in putting them through this, making them lose me again? For I do not have much time left to live.

Cancer has taken over my body and there is no hope of recovery, I know that now. I think I remained quite calm upon hearing it, my life doesn't mean as much to me as it used to. Still, he seemed to think I required something to hold on to, even if he knew that nothing could diminish the facts. He seemed to think, if he couldn't prolong my life, at least he could provide some soothing words. And oh, how right he was! The words that seemed so inadequate, so empty to him, they meant everything to me.

"I don't know whether it will help you to hear this… but you are certainly not the only one suffering of this disease. There is nothing to blame yourself for… even if you had all the money and influence in the world, there would be nothing that could be done about it. Just yesterday, a colleague told me that even Seto Kaiba, who is supposed to be the wealthiest man in this country…"

I wanted to hug the man, and, at the same time, I wanted to strangle him for bringing me these news. But even if I would have given anything to change it, if Seto was just as ill as I was, it wouldn't hurt him so much if I went back.  
At last, I could go home.  
And here I am.

--

I never expected to be welcomed at once, after all, surely none of the employees that work here now even know that I exist. That the door is thrown open before I have even reached it is no less than a surprise – but the person coming into sight behind it is a shock.

Unable to take my eyes from him, I just stand there in the rain, pushing my wet hair out of my face, staring, letting the seconds pass by.

"Tea."

His voice lifts the ban that seems to lie upon me, that voice for which I have waited every day, every night for almost twelve years. Tears finally spring to my eyes, heavy, salty tears, and mingle with the drops of rain that already cover my face. I stagger forwards into his arms, forgetting everything, becoming nothing but love and tears and beating heart.

This is the way it should have been for the past twelve years, just the two of us.

No – there's someone missing. Our daughter. Isanami, our only child. I lack the strength to ask for her, all I can do is lift my face and look into his eyes. I know he understands me the second that our gazes meet – he knows what brought me back, he feels that my time is just as limited as his, and he accepts it.

Everything is alright now, we may go.

Peace spreads through every fiber of my body, as if I had always known that it would come to this: That this would be the moment everything would concentrate on.

Looking for a moment over Seto's shoulder, I see a girl of about thirteen years that has been watching us all the time. About? No, I know it, it _is_ thirteen years. Somehow, we manage to pull her into our hug, and the three of us remain on the doorstep, half covered in rain, half warm and safe inside the house.

Finally, Isanami pulls away and steps back into the house. Silently, she closes the door and walks into the living room, while Seto and I follow. It is only now that one of us, he, finally manages to speak.

"Where have you been? All these years…"

He doesn't understand quite everything, of course not.

Quietly, for to speak aloud would be hard at the moment, I begin to tell them my story, or what you would call one. Actually, it is much less, and yet much more, it has been my life for the past twelve years.

"But – what did you live off all the time?"

Ridiculous though it sounds, maybe that is the hardest thing of all. Be careful what you wish for, your wish might become true. Isn't that what people say? As a girl, I've always wanted to become a dancer – and I became one. But what kind of a dancer! Turning down every major contract, always on the move, always leaving the place and the people I came to know as soon as I had to fear that I would become too famous, too well-known, that someone in Japan might, by chance, read my name or recognize my face.

Paris. London. Berlin. Moscow. Not a single one among the big, European cities that I didn't see, but I hardly ever lived there for more than a few months, for I couldn't risk my dancing – or my singing, for in due time, I came to play in musicals, as well – to attract any attention in what they used to call the Far East over there.

"Once, I even played the lead in the _Phantom of the Opera_. It was almost too much of a risk, but I just couldn't turn down this particular chance. To be Christine… At the casting, we were assigned a random piece of her role to perform for the jury, and mine was the song _Whishing you were somehow here again_."

Seto doesn't react, he never was a great fan of musicals, but Isanami seems to wince slightly. Thinking back to the day, I can still feel the bitter irony of the lyrics that haunted me for so long, and to make Seto understand why I even bother to mention such particulars, I quietly start to intone a few lines.

"_You were once my one companion_

_You were all that mattered… _

_You were once a friend and father_

_Then my world was shattered…_

…

_Wishing you were somehow here again_

_Wishing you were somehow near_

_Sometimes it seemed, if I just dreamed,_

_Somehow you would be here._

_Wishing I could here your voice again, _

_Knowing that I never would…_

_Dreaming of you won't help me to do…"_

--

Why do we cry if we experience something beautiful? A wiser person than I am said once that it probably is because we know it cannot last, that, ultimately, the moment has to die away. But that is not the case for me, I do not fear the future, nor do I regret the things that have to come. And still I can do nothing than give way to my tears, even now, hours after that scene in the living room, in the bedroom I haven't used for the past twelve years, but which is still mine nevertheless. Nothing has changed since the day I left, nothing at all.

Over there, on the table, there's still the scrap of paper on which I left a few lines for Chiyo, detailing what was to be done with Isanami in case I should not return. I had to take that into consideration, and a good thing it was that I did. My daughter was safe with her godfather until her real father returned. I always knew that I could rely on Yugi, even in cases like this, this was why I insisted on choosing him. Of course, the same was true for all of my friends, but there has always been a special bond between the two of us.

To think of the others now feels strange. After I've envisioned the lives they might have had for so long, today, at last, I found out that none of them has returned. Yugi and Seto are the only ones left among those that were old enough to serve - which luckily excludes Mokuba. It is almost comical to think that for all the rivalry between them, Yugi and Seto should be the only ones left of our little group, while Duke, Tristan, Joey… yes, even dear old Joey lost his life.

I will never see them again.

A smile creeps across my lips, of course I will see them again! And quite soon, if my doctor was right. For all my tears, I am now able to smile, and I relish the same melancholy, the bittersweet feeling I have known for so long, though for other reasons.

After all, what has changed for me?  
I am left with my memories, and my music.

Yes, the music.

I merely have to close my eyes, and at once I hear a familiar melody, can relive countless happy moments.

_Cold wind blowing through my heart_

_Cold wind blowing through my hair. _

_It's not gonna get colder than it is down here_

_And it's never gonna be the same._

_All the stars are staying up there_

_Only you are staying in my heart. _

_Did I ever lie to you? _

_I ask and you only smile… _

_When you smile_

_I do not care_

_When you smile_

_I do not care_

_When you smile_

_I do not care for anything. _

_I trust the silence of a body_

_I trust no man who loves me. _

_Still, it's not allowed to hate me_

_And if you're still there, _

_It is a true miracle._

Slowly, tenderly, my fingers trace the lines of Seto's face, remember all the details they have never truly forgotten, follow the curve of his lips… It seems to me that now I have lived my life to the fullest. If I have to, I can go without any regrets. In all my years as a dancer and actor there's at least one thing that I've learned: When the curtain falls, it is pointless to struggle against it. Pointless, but also unnecessary: For there will surely be another performance.

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Hope you liked the story so far! There are two more, I´ll upload them as soon as I´ve translated them.

If you thought the song at the end sounded a bit strange, that´s because it is originally in German (a song called "Wenn du lachst" by the German band "Juli") and I translated it myself.

Also, I hope you´re not _too_ annoyed that I used a relatively high amount of lyrics in this chapter, for me, songs are often the inspiration to new stories, and there was a time when I included one in almost every chapter I wrote. :D Also, I think it shows how important music and dance are to Tea.


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